


Battleground

by PineapplePrincess



Category: Calvin & Hobbes
Genre: Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Feigned Injuries, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Inferred Crushes, Nascent Crushes, Snowball Fight, kids being kids, split POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 08:45:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12884256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PineapplePrincess/pseuds/PineapplePrincess
Summary: Calvin decides to pull out all the stops and finally beat Susie in a snowball fight!  Even if Hobbes is no help at all.





	Battleground

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akitcougar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akitcougar/gifts).



> I wanted to be careful to keep Susie and Calvin's relationship on the level it lies on in canon (as a background crush expressed through their push-pull fighting. "She hit me with a snowball! She LIKES me!"), so I think I avoided centering this in romance as per your request! Hope you liked it a lot!

Anyone passing by Calvin’s house would see a perfectly ordinary suburban dwelling, situated on a large lot of land, with enormous and imposing trees and a deep copse of woods ringing the structure. His parents thought of it as an occasionally embarrassing haven from the city nearby.

Their son alternately considered it a spaceship, a prison, an impenetrable fairytale land, an alien planet or a war zone, depending on the day. 

At the moment, it was a battlefield, and one he intended to rule with an iron fist. When Hobbes noticed what he was busy doing, he sat down, paw to jaw.

“Pouring water over those snowballs,” said Hobbes, sitting down in a heap of fluff beside Calvin, “probably won’t get you any high-class smoochies from Susie.”

“The last thing I’m looking for is smoochies,” Calvin said, a full-body shudder running through him as he lumped snow into a very large mountain. “What I want is total domination! Total war in every single meaning of the word!” He pounded his hands together, shouting his declaration into the barren woods surrounding their lovely suburban house.

“That declaration of war,” Hobbes said, “would have sounded a thousand times more forceful if you weren’t wearing the cute new mittens your mother knitted for you.”

“They’re comfortable!” he snapped, tucking his hands under his armpits to hide them. He frowned as Hobbes sat down on the snowy field, his paws picking at the icy ground as it mounded up the large, flat flakes into a pile of something lovely and worthwhile. A couple of solid mounds formed up.

“I suppose if you’re so interested in being a little dictator I won’t stand in your way,” Hobbes drawled.

“Oh, you suppose?”

Hobbes grinned and ground his paws together. “As long as I can be chief of tuna. OOH! Or an arbitrator of albacore!?”

“Ugh…”

“Perhaps a Swami of Salmon?”

“Just keep making snowballs,” Calvin said, and started pouring more water over the line of balls.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Across the fenceline, a little girl was having a pleasant party in her tree house. “There you go, Mister Bun! A nice cup of cinnamon tea!” Susie pretended to pour a cup for her stuffed rabbit, and then sat down on the opposite side of the toy at her square-shaped paper box. It was a peaceful afternoon. Tranquil.

(Boring, frankly, but sometimes Susie felt like a boring day was better than an exciting one).

She immediately regretted wishing for excitement when a young voice piped up just outside her window.

“SUSIE!” shouted a too-familiar tone, and Susie let out a groan. “I have come to demand satisfaction!” Calvin shouted, waving his mittened fist in the air. 

Which left Susie an opening. She promptly pasted him right in the mouth with a couch pillow she’d dragged in, causing him to sprawl back into the snow, arms flailing. 

“Had enough?” she asked casually.

“That’s cheating!” he yelled back, and threw a ball of icy snow that smacked the frame of the window. 

“So is attacking a fort without warning!” she said.

“It’s the element of surprise!”

“Is that why you aimed at my face?” she asked. “You’d think you wouldn’t want to aim at the most obvious part of a person’s body!”

“I wasn’t being obvious,” he said. “I was trying to decimate the enemy and pillage their stronghold!” Part of her was incredibly amused by how serious he was taking this – the rest of her wanted to beat the pants off of him.

“At least let me come down and fight you!” she said. “All I have up here is Kool-Aid and Mister Bun!”

Calvin looked aside at Hobbes, who was propped up against him as he squatted by his wall of frozen snowballs. “What do you mean the Geneva Convention applies to snowball fights? Since when does that count when you’re surprise attacking somebody…Oh, I’ll fair fight you…” A long pause. “Fine. I’ll cease fire until you come down and make some snowballs, but don’t expect me to be nice about it.”

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Calvin gave Susie ten minutes to stockpile her own arsenal, complaining the entire time. By the time she was ready he’d complained at least four times about how girls took way too long to do anything.

Which was why she aimed for his knee when they lobbed their first misses at one another. He hit her right shoulder, and she cringed back from the stinging blow, then grabbed her next projectile. They started to dash around each other, forgetting their piles of snow, simply lobbing big chunks of wet, thick slush at each other. Susie was laughing, She was actually enjoying this fight. And Calvin was yelling about unjust violence between whoops and gulps of laughter. 

They were both coated with snow, the sun crawling toward the western horizon, by the time Calvin yelled that this would be the last one – he was running out of snowballs – Susie had snuck around the back of the hilly mountains, had climbed up the vaults of ice and dirt. She shimmied up a tree and climbed out onto a snow-laden branch.

“Well? Where are you?” He looked up just as she shook the branch and let down a rain of snow. “NO! A SNEAK ATTACK!” he bellowed. Soon he was so thoroughly carpeted by show he had no way to complain.

“Hah! I WIN this time, Calvin,” Susie called down to him. But then she noticed he was rather still under the carpet of bright white. “Calvin? Oh no!”

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

Calvin lay perfectly still until he felt his head shift into his mother’s lap, her warm hand patting his cheek. “Calvin?!” He fluttered his lashes and groaned dramatically, and his mother’s expression was suspicious and relieved at the same time. “There you go.”

“Ugh, what hit me?” Calvin asked, rubbing his head.

“It was just a bunch of snow,” Susie said frantically. “I knocked it off of the branch - I promise I didn’t mean to hurt him, Missus…”

“That’s all right, Susie,” said Calvin’s mother, scooping him up in her arms and picking up Hobbes, handing him to her son. “I know how Calvin is.”

Curses! She knew. “How I am?!” Calvin yelled.

“Don’t strain yourself, dear,” she said. “You’re going to bed early, with a mug of cocoa and a bag of ice for your head.”

“But I’m not tired!” Calvin sulked.

Susie looked relieved. “I’m glad to see you back to your old self,” she said. 

He frowned at her. “Why am I getting sent to bed? She should be punished! Lose her dessert for a month! Be locked up in a dungeon!” Calvin yelled. Hobbes dangled from his wet mitten forlornly.

“Because Susie didn’t get hurt,” Calvin’s mother pointed out reasonably. “I’ll have to watch you closely all night, you know – getting knocked out is really dangerous for someone as young as you are.”

“But!?”

“Now say good night to Susie.”

“Goodnight,” he muttered in her direction, as his mother carried him off to the safety of his room.

**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~**

“You would have won if you’d let me get up the tree as a lookout,” pointed out Hobbes unhelpfully. Calvin grumbled, sipping his cocoa, cuddled up beneath a blanket. It was peaceful again in the neighborhood, but he was confined to his bed with a light supper, wishing he were making snowmen in the moonlight.

“Your fuzzy butt was all over the place,” Calvin pointed out. “You wouldn’t know a defense line from a fishing line!”

“I happen to be a distinguished and experienced cat,” he replied. “It’s not my fault that you don’t know how to lead…”

“I don’t know how to lead?!”

“And anyway, you were distracted by Susie,” he said. 

Calvin frowned and rolled over, throwing an arm around Hobbes’ neck. “We’ll get her next time.”

“We will,” said Hobbes cheerfully, and let Calvin drift off to sleep.


End file.
